(CHUM jocks from late '65 to latter part of 1967;larger
viewhere.Graphic
courtesy Dale Johnson)

In 1966, CHUM boasted arguably one of the
best lineups in the history of Top 40 radio. But what became of the jocks we
enjoyed on CHUM back then?

First to depart from that classic lineup
was Dick Hayes (1-4 p.m.). After CHUM, he moved to KOL Seattle (as Jeff Boeing),
WNBC New York and WXYZ Detroit (as Jack Hayes). He retired from radio and living
in Michigan.

Next to go were Bob McAdorey (4-7 p.m.),
John Spragge (10 a.m.-1 p.m.) and Duff Roman (weekends). They left after the
station switched to the Drake format in August, 1968. McAdorey went to CFGM,
then to CHFI-AM (which later became CFTR), then back to CFGM in the 1970s. He
arrived at Global-TV in the mid-'70s and spent more than a-quarter century there
as an entertainment reporter. He died in 2005. Spragge, meanwhile, moved into
radio management at CFRB and Talk 640. He died in 2008. Roman later went to CKFH
- where he was the morning man and program director - then returned to CHUM in
management.

Brian Skinner with the Everly Brothers, 1965. (The CHUM Archives)

Brian Skinner (7-10 p.m.) left in the
summer of 1969. He went on a teaching career in Seattle. His son, Kori Skinner,
was on CHUM for a time in the 1990s.

Bob Laine (midnight-6 a.m.) did his last
regular CHUM shift in December, 1969 and did some fill-in work in 1970. He later
became program director at CHUM-FM and held a variety of CHUM positions before
retiring in 2003 after more than four decades at the station. He stayed active
at CHUM organizing the station's archives.

Larry Solway (10 p.m.-midnight) did his
last talk show on CHUM in 1970. He later did talk shows at CHIC Brampton, Ont.,
CFGM Richmond Hill, Ont., CFLY Kingston, Ont., and CFRB and CFYI (Talk 640)
Toronto.

That leaves Jay Nelson (6-10 a.m.), who did
his last CHUM show in December, 1980. He became the weatherman at CITY-TV
Toronto, and also had Toronto radio gigs at CKFM, CKEY and CJEZ and CKAN
Newmarket, Ont. He also taught radio at George Brown College in Toronto. Nelson
died in 1994.

As if the jocks, jingles and music weren't enough, even the commercials
were memorable on Top 40 radio in the '60s.

Especially outstanding were the ads for Coca-Cola, with the"Things
Go Better With Coke"radio ad
campaign. The campaign featured top musical artists of the day performing the
now-famous"Things Go Better With
Coke"jingle, modifying it to
their own individual styles. They actually sounded like hit records!

The result was commercial magic. These well-crafted jingles have stood the test
of time and still sound fabulous today.

When WCFL switched to Top 40 in
1965, general manager Ken Draper brought several employees with him from his
previous station, KYW Cleveland. Among them was Jim Stagg, who became the
afternoon drive jock at WCFL in the new format. Morning man Jim Runyon also came
over from KYW, as did Dick Orkin, Jerry G. Bishop, chief engineer Mike King and
newsman Jeff Kamen. WCFL was the latest addition to an impressive resume for
Stagg, who had previously jocked at WYDE Birmingham, Ala., WIBG Philadelphia,
KYA San Francisco and WOKY Milwaukee.

Stagg's WCFL show included
features like the "Stagg Line" - a listener call-in line - and "Stagg's Starbeat"
- celebrity interviews. He was named WCFL's music director in 1968 and later
became program director before leaving for Chicago station WMAQ in 1971. Stagg
left radio in 1975 to start a record store which grew into a chain, Record City.
He also became a realtor and started a video production company.

When radio buffs talk about WKBW, they mention WKBW and "the Jeff Kaye
era at WKBW" as two separate entities.

Kaye came to 'KB in March 1966 from WBZ Boston as night-time leader of
The Teenage Underground. But his real success at 'KB came as program director
of the 50,000-watt blowtorch in the late '60s and early '70s. Among his many
successes was his 1968 and 1971 adaptations of Orson Welles' War of the
Worlds, whose realism caused an uproar in western New York. A great judge of
talent, Kaye brought to Buffalo outstanding jocks like Sandy Beach, Don Berns,
Jack Armstrong and Bob MacRae, to go with existing 'KB talent like Dan Neaverth
and Fred Klestine.

Pop-Tops, the
WKBW Instant Replay (an edited version of the song just played), the Capsule
Countdown (a montage of the top 10 songs of a week from the past followed by the
number-one song) were all part the many little things that made Kaye's 'KB so
special. There was "Music to the People", a series of free live concerts
featuring local and national talent, the annual seven-hour Salvation Army
Christmas broadcast, and Buffalo Bills football broadcasts that sounded more
exiting than they probably were thanks to Kaye's superb production. But best of
all, Kaye's KBsoundedlike
Buffalo. It was as Buffalo as beef on weck, chicken wings and Lafayette Square.

In a 1972 interview with Programmers Digest, Kaye used the term
"unpredictable predictability" to describe the 'KB he commanded. Razor-sharp
tight programming, but with personality - that was the WKBW of Jeff Kaye. 'KB
was never the same after Kaye left in 1973 as the station went with a more
music, less personality approach. Kaye went to do mornings at Buffalo rival WBEN,
and later became the voice of NFL Films. He was named to the Buffalo
Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2002.

To his radio listeners he was a
broadcaster - and a highly-regarded one - in Ontario communities such as London,
Ottawa, Oshawa, Sault Ste. Marie, Smiths Falls and Blind River.

To his students at Fanshawe
College in London, Ont. - where he was a professor of radio broadcasting for 28
years - he was a teacher and a mentor.

To his family, he was a husband,
father and grandfather.

He was also an avid sailor who
held top positions at both the local Power Squadron and Yacht Club in London,
Ont.

One of Sarazin's proudest
achievements was CIXX-FM, the Fanshawe campus station he founded and helped
launch on October 31, 1978. CIXX-FM was the first fully licensed campus radio
station in Canada. Sarazin co-authored the station's original CRTC application
and managed CIXX-FM in its early years.

Sarazin was diagnosed with
prostate cancer in 1999 and fought the disease bravely until succumbing November
29, 2005. He was 58 and left behind a legacy that continues with the Barry P.
Sarazin Memorial Award, which honours the Fanshawe student who demonstrates the
qualities held by Sarazin throughout his teaching and broadcasting career.

In 1966, Sarazin was at CKLB
Oshawa. Hear him filling in on the morning showhere.

Radio consultant Mike Joseph had quite a track record of success on his
resume when he arrived in Detroit in 1963 to revamp WKMH. Joseph had launched
very successful Top 40 formats at two well-known stations: WKBW Buffalo in 1958
and WABC New York in 1960. He had also been successful with Grand Rapids, Mich.,
station WLAV.

But WKMH presented quite a challenge, even to Joseph. The station languished
near the bottom of the ratings with an adult contemporary format known as"Flagship
Radio."So Joseph shook things up
- a lot.

Taking on three established rock 'n' roll stations in the market (WJBK, WXYZ
and CKLW), Joseph launched WKNR "Keener 13" on October 31, 1963. In an era where
stations usually eased into new formats, "Keener" went right for the jugular,
opening challenging its competition with a promotion called "Battle of the
Giants." The renamed station (it got its call letters from founder Fred Knorr)
featured a tight 31-song playlist and a host of personality deejays including
Mort Crowley, Robin Seymour, Jim Sanders, Gary Stevens, Bob Green, Bill Phillips
and Paul Cannon. Add to that the station's great newscasts, contests and
production - not to mention the reverb! - and you had a winning combination.

Keener quickly shot to the top of the Detroit ratings charts. From a ratings
share of two before the switch, it consistently garnered shares in the 25 to 30
range after. It was a dominance that would last until CKLW introduced the
"Drake" format in 1967 and FM grew in popularity after that. Eventually WKNR
faded and was replaced by easy-listening WNIC on April 25, 1972, but not before
providing nearly a decade of memorable Top 40 radio.

Jerry Goodwin was WKNR's noon-3 p.m. man from 1964 to 1967. Prior to WKNR, he
was at KFDA Amarillo, Tex. (1959), KBOX Dallas (1961) and WQAM Miami (1962). In
1968, he moved over to WKNR-FM and in 1969 to WABX. After stops in Toledo (WIOT,
1972) and a return to Detroit (WWWW, 1972) he moved to Boston in 1976 for stints
at WCOZ, WBCN, WCGY and WROL.

Goodwin retired from the biz in 1999 but continued to teach radio at the New
England Institute of Art.

Tune into most music stations
after midnight these days and you're most likely to hear syndicated shows,
voicetracking or wall-to-wall music. A live voice? Good luck.

But it wasn't always so.

The all-night show used to be
alive with real, living, breathing human beings. Jocks not only worked the
all-night show butentertainedwith
personality and a more one-on-one relationship with the listener than existed in
other dayparts.

Taking us back to that time is
this aircheck of Johnny Midnight. That wasn't his real name of course - he was
Don Williams and his long resume includes stops at KSTT Davenport, Iowa, WAQI
Ashtabula, Ohio, WHK Cleveland, WHLO Akron, Ohio, WELW Willoughby, Ohio, WTOD,
WTTO and WSPD Toledo, and WFTL plus sister FM WEWZ (later WJQY) Fort Lauderdale,
Fla.

Williams was one of the WONE Boss
Men from June, 1966 to February, 1968. He toldRock
Radio Scrapbookthat when
he arrived at WONE the program director's opening line was "Welcome, Johnny
Midnight"! He wasn't too pleased with being assigned such an air name, and
admits he would have stayed at WHK had he known. But Williams says WONE wasn't
so bad, he just didn't like being kept in the dark about the Johnny Midnight
thing.

Progressive rock radio in New York began,
oddly enough, without one of the mainstays of the format - disc jockeys.

WOR-FM began playing rock music on July 30,
1966, but because of a AFTRA strike, there were no deejays. Only music, promos,
jingles and commercials were played. It would be more than two months - October
8, 1966 - before announcers appeared.

That first day with announcers began with a
simulcast of John Gambling's WOR-AM morning show from 6-9 a.m. Then it was Scott
Muni 9 a.m.-noon, Johnny Michaels noon-3 p.m., and Muni again 3-6 p.m. Murray
the K did 6 p.m.-midnight and Rosko took over from midnight-6 a.m.

While WOR-FM was considered a "progressive
rock" station, much of the music on this first day of music with deejays was a
grab-bag of Top 40, oldies and album cuts. However, it was much different in
approach from the AM stations of the day, more low-key, much looser and relaxed.

WOR-FM only stayed with the progressive
rock format for about a year - the Bill Drake"Big
Town Sound"(Top 40) debuted on
98.7 in November, 1967. But it helped launch a new era in rock radio.

Jack Armstrong got his start in his home
state of North Carolina, at stations like WCOG Greensboro and WAYS Charlotte.
His first out-of-state radio gig was in 1966, at WIXY Cleveland. As he did
throughout much of his early career, Armstrong held down the evening shift at"Wixie".
He was part of WIXY lineup that included Jerry Brooke, Johnny Canton, Johnny
Walters, Al Gates and Bobby Magic - names which echo only in our memories now
but which resonated loud and clear at the time.

Jack Armstrong died March 23, 2008 after a fall at his home in High
Point, N.C. He was 62.

(Johnny Mitchell is shown on this KHJ chart from December 28, 1966/Courtesy
Tom Howard)

KHJ's call letters stood forKindness,Happiness
andJoy, and there was plenty
of that to go around for the Los Angeles station back in the 1960s.

It was Boss Radio, and its tight format and restrictive playlist garnered huge
ratings and a big place in Top 40 radio history. And while deejays were kept on
a short rein, a few personalities did develop, most notably Robert W. Morgan and
The Real Don Steele. It was memorable, energetic radio that just seems to get
better the more we look back on it.

On December 30, 1966, Robert W. Morgan, Frank Terry and Gary Mack and the other
KHJ jocks counted down the Big 93 of 1966.